Artifacts, Documents Reveal Info About Those Columbus Met in Cuba

Interpretations of a now defunct form of Spanish writing, in combination
with a joint U.S.-Cuban archaeological effort, are granting researchers
insight into the Cuban people who Christopher Columbus encountered on his
first voyage to the “New World.”

During the two previous summers, an archaeological effort in eastern Cuba
has recovered several thousand pottery and stone artifacts from the site
of a former large native village, El Chorro de Maita. The effort is co-led
by The University of Alabama and the Central-Eastern Department of
Archaeology of the science ministry of Cuba and sponsored by the National
Geographic Society. Roberto Valcarcel led the Cuban contingent.

Dr. Jim Knight, a UA professor of anthropology who set up and is advising
the project, said the artifacts from the site, in combination with the
research of documents archived in Spain, are shedding light on the early
history of the Indians of Cuba.